Rounding out our series of videos from the 2012 Comptel User Group is Simo Isomäki, vice president of global business support at Comptel. In this video, learn why Simo was drawn to Comptel – more than a decade ago – and what he considers to be the most dramatic technological invention of our time.

At the 2012 Comptel User Group in Copenhagen, Stratecast analyst Jeff Cotrupe took a few minutes to explain what he considers most exciting about analytics and how communications service providers can leverage network and other data across their organizations. Watch the video below for more!

And in case you missed them, Comptel User Group videos with Comptel’s CEO, Juhani Hintikka, vice president of the fulfillment business, Simon Osborne, and director of product marketing, Steve Hateley, are also available.

Adding to our series of videos from the 2012 Comptel User Group in Copenhagen, Steve Hateley, director of product marketing, shares what his favorite ‘co’ word is and the technology innovation that excites him most. Watch and hear a surprising, little-known fact about him, too!

Just a year ago, Comptel was discussing data as the new oil – touting the message that the key to future communications service provider (CSP) revenue is tapping into the information at their fingertips to better understand their customers. At this year’s Comptel User Group, CEO Juhani Hintikka took this a step further, explaining that it’s also about making data beautiful.

In his keynote presentation to customers, partners and industry analysts, Juhani examined the key factors impacting today’s telecommunications landscape. These included efficiently employing assets, monetising data services, differentiating with personalised customer information and driving contextual intelligence for meaningful actions. However, as famous hockey player (or as Juhani put it, the famous philosopher) Wayne Gretzky said: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” The same is true for the telecommunications industry – we need to increasingly predict what is important to customers rather than simply reacting.

So how do you know where the puck will be? Analytics can play a key role. For instance, Comptel’s analytics product has been over 80% accurate with results but, as Juhani stressed, this is only valuable if CSPs take action based on these insights – this can be anything from provisioning to targeted campaigns or beyond. They must capitalise on the opportunity to understand the uniqueness of each customer or circumstance and convert that into actionable intelligence.

Ultimately, contextual intelligence is about getting the basics right for profitability, churn reduction, and an increase in wallet share and brand recognition. And as the amount of data continues to increase, problems will likely arise. But if the telecommunications industry can embrace this approach aided by an event-analysis-action strategic framework to get the most value possible out of that data, the opportunity will only be that much bigger. If we can accomplish this, like Juhani stated, let the data grow…we can and will ultimately achieve the goal of making data beautiful.

After some very good conversations at Management World 2012 in Dublin just a few weeks ago, we’re eager to continue the momentum and kick off the 15th annual Comptel User Group in Copenhagen, Denmark this week. Attendees can look forward to networking with Comptel’s executive management and our resident solution experts and learning from other customers and partners, in addition to partaking in some fun extracurricular activities like dinner at one of Copenhagen’s oldest theme parks and most popular attractions, Tivoli.

This year’s Comptel User Group will also feature a corporate strategy overview from CEO Juhani Hintikka, followed by presentations from TRUE Corporation in Thailand on provisioning, tefficient on improving efficiency in the telecoms sector, and Heavy Reading analysts Sarah Wallace and Ari Banerjee on compelling use cases for analytics, among others. Product demos and sessions on how they can help CSPs make data beautiful and better engage with their customers will also be available throughout the week.

While we wait for things to officially begin, here are some fun facts about the beautiful city of Copenhagen:

As we look forward to the upcoming summer holidays, we remain busier than ever here at Comptel. Just in the coming week, we have a flurry of activity planned including preparing for our annual Comptel User Group in Copenhagen and sending a team of Comptelians to the other side of the globe for Cisco Live! in San Diego.

Since I cannot attend Cisco Live!, I really envy all of the attendees who have a wonderful opportunity to see the world famous Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman on stage. In addition to the show happenings, there are also several opportunities to network with peers during extracurricular activities. Hope to get some live footage from San Diego!

The event is an excellent place to present our company and meet the future talent in information and communications technology. Last year, the fair brought more than 60 companies and 2,000 students together! While the competition for talented employees is fierce, Comptel has a lot to offer. For example, we are just the right size; Comptel is big enough to offer many global opportunities, but at the same time, we’re still small enough to be agile. And of course, we have been in business since the late 1980s (when most of the students were not even born!).

As a software house, Comptel offers a wide variety of jobs, ranging from software development to engineering to sales and customer services. And our flexibility makes it possible for employees to find the right fit for them. In fact, quite a few engineers have moved to business development and sales. As a truly international company, having delivered our solutions to 85 countries, Comptel hires engineers irrespective of nationality—non-Finnish speaking colleagues are rather the norm than the exception. We also offer opportunities to relocate to other Comptel offices, with Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as the most popular destination at the moment.

But first, we need to get students’ attention at our booth. This year, we are running a short, simple (that is not how I would describe it!) programming quiz. The lucky winner will return to his or her campus flat with a trampoline! After all, we are the people who like to reach new heights in this industry.